Maggie never slept well on the first night back in the general population. In solitary—when she wasn't occupying her mind with wild fantasies of Millie's murder—the only thing to do was sleep, so it was difficult to get back into the grove of the asylum's strict schedule. Jerome had fallen asleep about an hour after her return, or he had stopped responding to her anyhow. Either way, she'd been up all night with her thoughts.

A few hours back in her cell, she had finally remembered her book. She had taken it with her to dinner two days prior, and she highly doubted that the guards would have returned the book to her cell, where it rightfully belonged, but she searched the small room anyway. After all, she wasn't getting any sleep regardless.

She was still awake when the morning bell went off, the loud ringing bouncing off the stone walls and down the long corridors, waking the inmates that hadn't already risen of their own accord; Jerome was one of them. He blinked a few times before rolling his head to one side, listening to the bones in his neck popping before hearing Maggie's voice from across the hall, frenzied and irritated.

"…nothing but a bunch of thieving, conniving con-artists," she was saying, and Jerome sat up, swinging his long legs over the side of his bed, smiling as he listened.

"You should've never taken the book to mealtime in the first place," she replied to herself.

"I can take my possessions wherever I so choose," she snapped back almost immediately, her rising temper evident in her voice.

"And a good morning to you as well, Mags," Jerome said, finally speaking up. He dropped his voice to a lower octave and continued, "What, pray tell, are we angry about today?"

Maggie, who was sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, cut her eyes towards the door of her cell at the sound of Jerome's voice. She frowned.

"What makes you think that's any of your business, Circus Boy?" she bit out. Jerome tutted, shaking his head at her answer.

"I thought we were friends, Mags. I thought we could talk out our problems," he said, his voice rising a bit to feign sadness before he let out a small chuckle.

Maggie stretched out her arms and legs, yawning before rising from her bed.

"I don't suppose you happen to know where my copy of Alice in Wonderland ran off to when those idiots threw me in the cushy cell?"

Jerome's face broke out into a wide grin, his teeth glinting as his eyes moved to a paperback book sitting on the desk in his cell. He'd snatched it up after Maggie had been pulled out of the cafeteria, kicking and screaming.

"Lost it so soon?" he replied. "You really should take better care of your belongings."

"I didn't lose it," Maggie iterated through clenched teeth. "It was stolen."

"That's a real shame," Jerome said, jumping up from his bed and leaning against his door, peering through the little window. Maggie turned to her own window and cocked her head at him, still scowling. He frowned at her.

"You should smile, Maggie," he said, his voice a low growl. "You shouldn't waste such a pretty face."

Maggie refrained from smiling at the word 'pretty,' opting instead to focus on his other words. She walked closer to her door, the tip of her nose grazing the metal of the caged window.

"Whatever I choose to do with my face could never be classified as a waste. I mean, just look at me. The universe decided it liked my face so much that it made two more copies of it. Cheap knockoffs, of course, and I did the world a favor by removing one of them from existence, but the sentiment remains the same. And as I've told you before: I'm pretty regardless of my current expression. You'd do well to remember that," she said, never breaking eye contact with him.

Jerome let out a loud cackle as he stared her down.

"You're confident," he said. "I love that."

Maggie finally allowed herself to smile, and Jerome's eyes lit up when a small, breathy laugh escaped her lips.

"Is there any other way to be?"

Before Jerome could respond, a nightstick came into the contact with his door. He didn't flinch, but the action still annoyed him, and he gave the offending guard a dangerous look.

"Back away from the door, Inmates," the guard said, striking Maggie's door as well. However, she had already backed away from her little window and didn't seem annoyed by the action.

"Hiya, Jordan," she said as he jingled his keyring, unlocking her cell door. His face remained stoic as Maggie stepped out of her cell and fell in line behind him as he turned to Jerome's door.

"It's Officer Forbes; don't make me tell you again," he said as he unlocked Jerome's door.

"How about I call you that when you stop calling me Inmate. Deal?" Maggie retorted, smiling up at Jerome when he stepped into the hallway. "I don't suppose you could make yourself useful and tell me when Daniel will be back?" she asked the guard.

"Officer Sawyer is on medical leave, and his return, whenever that may be, is of no concern of yours," he answered as they walked down the corridor to the next set of cells.

"Clearly it is; otherwise, I wouldn't have asked, would I?" Maggie said in an annoyed tone, and Officer Forbes ignored her. She rolled her eyes and turned to Jerome, jabbing her thumb in the guard's direction.

"Can you believe this guy?" she said. "You say one wrong thing in here, and people turn on you—treat you like you're scum of the earth."

"You threatened to kill him not two weeks ago," said the next inmate to join them in line, having overheard the conversation being had. Jerome laughed at this.

"Mind your own business, Lorenzo, before I mind it for you," Maggie threatened. She turned back to Jerome as they were stopped. "Besides, I didn't kill him; I didn't even try. He should be thanking me really."

Jerome laughed harder at her remarks, but he flipped on a dime, frowning at her as she turned around again to walk forward with the group. He leaned forward as they walked, hovering over her shoulder.

"Why the sudden interest in Lover Boy's recovery? Bored of me already?"

Maggie stopped walking and turned to face Jerome, a smirk resting on her lips. He was still leaned forward, his face close to hers. She batted her lashes dramatically.

"How could I be bored? I've barely gotten to play with you yet," she said as she watched a devious smile return to his face.

Another loud bang from down the corridor sounded as Officer Forbes slammed his nightstick against a cell door.

"Keep it moving, you two!"

Maggie spun on her heel and moved forward, Jerome following suit.

"I'm not so much interested in his recovery per se, I just want to know how soon I can expect another copy of my missing book. Before his…accident, he did tell me he'd try to get me one. He usually makes good on his promises."

When they finally made it to the cafeteria, Maggie was stopped by one of the cooks after grabbing a tray of food. They handed her a little plastic spork. She looked down at the spork and back up at the cook.

"I could do just as much damage with that than with a metal fork," she half-complained, half-boasted. "Anything's a weapon if you try hard enough."

The cook sighed.

"Just take the damn spork, Rubera."

Maggie smiled, plucking the plastic utensil from the cook's hand before strolling off to her usual spot. She sat down across from Greenwood, who glared at her. She silently opened the little package of grape jelly that came with her meal and scooped it onto a piece of buttered toast, spreading the purple goop around with the spork. Her eyes briefly flashed to his bandaged hand.

"You've got a lot of nerve, coming to sit here after what you did," he said to Maggie as Jerome took a seat beside her.

"You're not still mad about that, are you?" Maggie asked, still smoothing the jelly over her toast, spreading it evenly to every corner. "It's been long enough, and I'm over it, so why shouldn't you be?"

"Oh, the things I'm going to do to you…" Greenwood said, trailing off at the end. Maggie sat her toast on her tray and leaned over the table, inching closer to Greenwood.

"So do it," she said.

Maggie stared Greenwood down for a few seconds, long enough for them to be joined by Sionis and Dobkins. He grimaced at her, but made no move. Maggie gave him a toothy grin before popping her spork into her mouth and licking off the remaining jelly. She pulled it from her mouth with a pop.

"Thought so," she said, sitting back in her seat and picking up her toast. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know what happened to my book that day, right?" she asked, her voice suddenly cheery and nonchalant.

When Greenwood didn't answer, Maggie looked back up at him. She nodded as she took a bite of her toast.

"Oh, right. You were preoccupied; guess I can't really fault you for not being the most observant," she said. She moved her gaze to Sionis, who only shook his head.

"Don't know, don't care," he said. Maggie opened her mouth, but Sionis beat her to it. "And no, I'm not getting you another one without a favor in return."

Maggie closed her mouth, poking her bottom lip out into a pout. She looked at Dobkins before rolling her eyes. There was no use in asking a compulsive liar.

"Well, damn," she said, taking another bite of her toast.

Jerome smiled as he watched her. Maggie really did know how to liven things up. He wasn't exactly sure why he was keeping her book hidden from her. He just liked pushing buttons, especially when he didn't know what they were going to do. Maggie was new with so many untouched buttons just waiting to be pressed, and he wanted to push them all. He especially couldn't wait to find the one that really set her off; he had a feeling it'd be beautiful to watch, spectacular just like her.

At the end of breakfast, Maggie separated herself from the boys. The showers were open, and Maggie was always in the first group—with the exception of solitary and/or cafeteria rumbles. She stood in line, wiggling her toes in her state-issued shower shoes. Her legs brushed together as the line moved forward, and Maggie frowned at the scratchy sensation. She didn't much care what other people chose to do in regard to body hair, and quite frankly, she would laugh in the face of anyone who told her that she needed to shave to conform to societal standards of beauty. But it was so damn uncomfortable to grow back, and she liked how soft her skin felt after a nice shave.

She turned her head to look down the line of women standing in their cotton/polyester blend undergarments, beige towels in their hands as they waited their turn. Maggie spotted a woman with a dark, pixie haircut a few people behind her in line. Her name was Carla, and before the asylum had reopened, they'd been in the same facility upstate. Maggie liked Carla; she really did—in her own way. She had definitely known her the longest and was probably the closest thing that Maggie had to a real friend. When Maggie had first been incarcerated, it had been Carla that showed her the ropes; Carla had protected her, when she needed it. However, here in Arkham, it was more beneficial for Maggie to stick close to Sionis, and Carla didn't get along with Sionis or Greenwood very well, so Maggie had been seeing less and less of Carla.

Carla was a special case. She was twenty-one, but she'd been locked away since she was eighteen; she murdered her boyfriend and his mom with a meat cleaver. Well, part of her did anyhow. Carla was the only person in Arkham with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Before meeting Carla, Maggie didn't know much about DID; the idea of multiple personalities was something she only knew of from television and books, and those characters were all certified crazy. But not Carla. In fact, according to Carla, most people with DID were just your average Joe Blows on the street.

Carla was said to have at least seven personalities. Carla was—what she called—the Host, and the other six were called Alters. In the year that Maggie had known Carla, she'd only ever met and spoken to one Alter (that she knew of; Carla had told her that typically when switches occur, it goes unnoticed). The Alter's name had been Leticia, and Maggie had only met her once. Maggie liked Carla far better. Maggie didn't know or really care to know the others, especially not the super rare homicidal one, but from what Maggie knew, Carla was mostly in control of the system, and she was an ordinary girl.

Maggie made her way over to the older girl, allowing people to pass her until she stood directly in front of Carla in the line. The girl smiled at Maggie's presence.

"I heard you stabbed Greenwood in the hand with a knife," she said, smiling. Maggie chuckled.

"A fork, but close enough. Two days in solitary over a little flesh wound, can you believe that? Like that idiot actually matters or something," Maggie said, rolling her eyes.

"And did you also get Blanders transferred upstate?"

"His moral compass got him transferred; I was just a catalyst," Maggie said, running her fingers through her hair. "I mean, what has Gotham come to when one of its officers won't take bribes?"

Carla nodded as though she understood something.

"So you did it for Sionis."

"I did it for me," she retorted. "I don't do things for Sionis because he's such a swell guy, you know?"

Carla gave a tired smile, bringing her hand up to gingerly stroke Maggie's cheek. Maggie welcomed the warmth of her touch.

"I wish you wouldn't do things for him at all," she said.

"A girl's gotta get by in this place somehow, C. It's smarter to make friends than enemies."

"Oh? Like you've done with Greenwood? Seriously, Mags, he is going to hurt you one day," Carla said, retracting her hand as she frowned. Maggie frowned as well.

"Your lack of faith in me is offensive," she said in a clipped tone. "I have Greenwood squashed under my thumb like the insect that he is. He'll do nothing to me. He's a coward; I don't care how many women he's killed."

As the line moved forward once more, Maggie remembered what had brought her back to Carla in the first place. She returned her smile to her face.

"Are you using your razor today?" she asked, and Carla laughed.

"If you're looking to make a weapon, use your own razor."

"No weapons; I swear. I just want to shave. Here, feel," Maggie said, rubbing one of her legs against Carla's. Carla recoiled from the prickly touch. "Just got out of solitary, remember? No razor privileges for at the very least seven days."

"You use people too much, Maggie. It's going to backfire on you one day, you know that?"

Maggie raised her eyebrows at Carla's statement, but said nothing. She still wanted an answer about the razor. Carla sighed in a defeated sort of way. Maggie may have been a narcissist, but Carla really did care for the younger girl, and she knew—or rather held out hope—that deep, deep down Maggie cared for her as well in some weird, twisted way.

Maggie returned from the showers nice and clean and freshly shaven. She walked into the break room, her elbow interlocked with Carla's as they caught up with each other. Maggie did most of the talking, of course, as she found her life far more interesting than those of others. Jerome watched as the two girls took up residence in a far corner of the room. Maggie's loud laugh bounced across the room to his ears, and he frowned.

Sionis looked up from his sketchpad and followed Jerome's gaze.

"Carla Price," he said as he went back to his drawing. "Rubera's quite fond of her for reasons unknown. They occasionally wander off together. She'll be back when she gets bored or wants something, whichever comes first."

"And what is the expected timeframe for that?" Jerome asked, not taking his eyes off the girls.

"A couple of days, maybe."

"Well, that just won't do," Jerome said, followed by a maniacal laugh. It was his fifth day in Arkham, and as far as he could tell, Maggie Rubera was by far the most interesting person in the joint, excluding himself, of course. He had been deprived of her for two days, and now, she was ignoring him? Jerome simply wouldn't stand for it. After all, how was he supposed to push her buttons when she was all the way over there? How was he supposed to toy with her?

This big, red button had a name: Carla Price, but Jerome couldn't push it, not yet anyhow, not in the ways he wanted to. He knew he needed to work his way up to that particular button. However, that didn't mean he couldn't poke around the button a little bit.

Jerome jumped up from his chair, dramatically straightening the jacket of his striped uniform before making his way over to the two girls. He forewent the chair, sitting on top of the table instead, his left knee brushing briefly against Maggie's left arm. She stopped talking and looked up at him with mild surprise, but he was looking at Carla.

"Hiya, gorgeous," he said, "I'm Jerome."

Both women immediately frowned. Carla, as a general rule, was just wary of new people, especially men and especially when they seemed like they wanted something. And Jerome seemed like he wanted something. Maggie's mood had been soured for more selfish reasons. Gorgeous? Had Jerome ever called her that? Now that she thought back on it, no, she did not believe that he had. Pretty, maybe, but not gorgeous.

Maggie turned ever so slightly in her chair, angling her body more towards Jerome, her hand moving to touch his knee lightly before asking,

"What brings you here?"

Jerome smiled down at her, eyes flicking to her hand, which still rested lightly on his knee.

"Oh, you know, just wanted to meet your friend, Mags," he said, turning his attention back to Carla, who was still frowning.

"Not interested," Carla said immediately, and Maggie had to smile just a bit. Jerome's brows shot upward, the smile never leaving his face.

"Not great company is she?" he said to Maggie. Maggie relaxed a bit; Jerome wasn't Carla's type, and maybe it would be fun to watch him try. Maggie started to retract her hand from Jerome's knee, but Jerome was faster. He grasped her wrist tightly, keeping her hand in place as he frowned. Maggie mirrored his frown, narrowing her eyes at him.

Jerome turned back to Carla, forcing a sinister smile on his face. Carla's eyes flicked to his hold on Maggie's wrist. Her jaw ticked as she clenched her teeth. True, it had been a long time since Maggie had needed her protection, but old habits die hard. Carla's hands clenched into fists, and she looked up at Jerome with a ferocious glare.

"You should keep your hands to yourself, Circus Freak," she said. Jerome's eyes lit up as he laughed gleefully.

"So Mags has mentioned me, has she?" he asked, grip tightening on Maggie's wrist in excitement. His voice lowered to a growl. "Funny, because she hasn't mentioned you at all."